How Give. Receive. Learn. Works

Give. Membership is simple: If you are over 35 years old, $1,000 of your annual donation goes into our grants pool. For those 35 and younger, $500 is added. Any woman may join a grant team and help to review applications, conduct site visits, and recommend finalist non-profits. The full membership votes on a slate of candidates, with one vote per woman. Finalists receiving the most votes are awarded a grant, giving each member an equal say in which non-profits we fund. The number of grantees always depends on the number of members – the more members, the more money we have to award.

Receive. TPC facilitates connections between our like-minded member philanthropists and our grantees. After members learn more about the critical work grantees perform in our community, many are motivated to help: In a recent survey, 100 of our members (35%) donated to or volunteered for at least one grantee. This amplifies our philanthropic reach far beyond grant dollars to include members’ involvement as Board members, volunteers, private donors, and pro bono advisors.

Learn. Throughout the year, we provide our members multiple opportunities for learning what it means to be a philanthropist. Through educational programming and grant review teams, we create educated, energized donors who learn how to be effective Board members, read non-profit financial statements, assess an organization’s health, and conduct effective site visits. We offer Philanthropy Dialogues, small-group discussions with representatives from TPC’s current grantees, who delve into hot topics in philanthropy. Members also have the opportunity during Volunteer Days to provide direct service to grantees. Each member decides for herself how involved she’d like to be.

The Philanthropy Connection’s mission is to inspire, teach, and enable all generations of women to engage in collective philanthropy in order to provide grants to charitable organizations that improve the quality of life for low-resource individuals and families living in Massachusetts.